Trojan Kill Switches In Military Technology 392
Nrbelex writes "The New York Times reports in this week's Science section that hardware and software trojan kill switches in military devices are an increasing concern, and may have already been used. 'A 2007 Israeli Air Force attack on a suspected, partly-constructed Syrian nuclear reactor led to speculation about why the Syrian air defense system did not respond to the Israeli aircraft. Accounts of the event initially indicated that sophisticated jamming technology was used to blind the radars. Last December, however, a report in an American technical publication, IEEE Spectrum, cited a European industry source in raising the possibility that the Israelis might have used a built-in kill switch to shut down the radars. Separately, an American semiconductor industry executive said in an interview that he had direct knowledge of the operation and that the technology for disabling the radars was supplied by Americans to the Israeli electronic intelligence agency, Unit 8200.'"
Re:Thatcher and Argentina (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that the Argentinians didn't actually have any launchers for the Exocets in the first place, it's a bloody miracle any got launched at all. There's no mention of a kill switch anywhere that I can find, and given that they launched all four they had, and all but one are accounted for, the kill switch story sounds unlikely.
Re:Syrians have U.S. military hardware ? (Score:1, Interesting)
America's ability to influence what goes into enemy military hardware isn't constrained by what we directly supply. With proper access and funding, we can influence what they build at home too.
Standard operating procedure (Score:5, Interesting)
In the cold war the united states did this several times to the USSR, one notable example was a gas pipeline explosion caused by a specifically sabotaged piece of software.
Here is an article detailing the event;
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39147917,00.htm [zdnet.co.uk]
The USSR attempted in several instances to steal or otherwise acquire technology from the united states, and whenever this was detected our counter-intelligence services would provide flawed or otherwise sabotaged technology in place of the actual information sought. This had the desired cascading effect of the USSR unable to trust any technology that may have been introduced from non-USSR sources and was considered an extremely significant part of the eventual collapse of the USSR.
Radars and kill switch (Score:3, Interesting)
A kill switch needs external communication to be activated which can be quite impossible to implement in many case but radars are basically radio receivers so a specific sequence of radio impulsion at a given frequency could activate the kill switch..
Interesting.
Integrated air defence (Score:3, Interesting)
My understanding is that they took out the NETWORK and COMPUTERS connecting all the weaponry, not the weaponry. So while the guys in the missile batteries were playing cards, or whatever, the search radar was showing cartoons, and nobody ever woke the general up with an attack warning until the bombs dropped. Lieutenants do not shoot missiles unless the general says it is OK.
Re:Riiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's another explanation - it's a red herring. By floating this story, you kill 2 birds:
1) It "explains" the lack of Syrian response in a way that maintains security on the real capabilities of Israeli jamming, and
2) It sends foreign powers on a wild goose chase, spending resources trying to root out "kill switches" that aren't there. This takes away from resources that could be spent improving the system's ability to see through jamming.
The elegance is that it has JUST enough plausibility that it can't be ignored, due to the (now) well publicized Soviet gas pumping station sabotage.
Re:Open Source (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh jeebus. Building a missile, bomb or anything that kills people is NOT HARD. I can get the relevant documents needed for anyone with a mild training in electronics to build a guidance system for a missile or a homing system for a rocket.
If you think there is something magical and wondrous in military hardware that makes it "special" you are watching way too much TV.
Hell I have made ground launched model rockets that would home in on a ground target, and I did not use GPS to get within a 50 foot radius from a 1500 foot apogee point. This was with very basic electronics and almost no processing power plus parts from a hobby shop for helicopter and RC plane flying.
I only needed 1-29/240 size engine to lift that payload. This was back in college for my EE degree, with todays stuff I could make the accuracy far better and use off the shelf GPS for long range AND would not need to lift as much as servos are smaller and lighter and the avaionics payload would be far lighter.
Note: you can even buy UAV kits today.
Re:Riiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe or it could just be that the US has samples of all these radar systems and found the best way to jam or overload them.
Nothing is perfect so I am sure they have torn those system apart and found any weakness. The US then shared that information.
Kind of like in WWII when the US found a Zero.
They found that the Zero had a longer range, could out climb, out turn, and was faster than the F4F fighters the US had. The only thing advantage the F4F had was that it could out dive the Zero and as built like a tank.
The one problem it had was at high speed it didn't turn well to the left. So F4Fs made diving attacks at high speed and turned left to escape. The F4F ended up with a very good kill rate when dealing with the Zero.
If you can find a weakness and exploit it you will often win.
Re:Thatcher and Argentina (Score:5, Interesting)
most of the exocets the argentinians had were naval versions designed to be lanched from ships. since they were keeping their ships away from the combat zone after a british sub sunk ARA general belgrano.
after that they were left with the very few aircraft lanuched units they had. in the end, 3 hit. one in the HMS sheffield, two on MV atlantic conveyor. sheffild sunk near the exclusion zone. atlantic conveyor lost the cargo and was towed back to england, then scuttled bacuase the damages were so extensive it'd be cheaper to build another ship thank repair her.
to tell the truth, the argentinians were ONE exocet away from winning the war. if they had scored one fatal hit against HMS invincible, that would have given them the war and the malvinas islands. unfortunatelly, our "hermanos" only had one left. the super etendards atacked the invincible with support of four A4 skyhawks, but the exocet only caused superficial damage, and the bombs from the skyhawks missed.
thus the british kept their islands.
disclaimer: i'm brasilian, was alive during the war and living in rio grande do sul, a brasilian state that shares a large border with argentina.
Re:Riiight (Score:4, Interesting)
supporting your argument, the CIA encouraged belief in UFO sitings to use as cover for SR-71/A-12 and U-2 flights. Mind you, and I need to say this on/., but this has nothing to do with weather or not there really are UFOs; it's just that if more people believe in then fewer will think that a jet they may see from extreme range/altitude is really a jet.
Kill Switches in the Silicon (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not hypocrisy, it's power differential.
The government wields an enormous amount of power over us, and as such should expect a greater amount of scrutiny (as in less privacy) than us. This isn't hypocritical because the same rule applies to everyone. If you are given power over others, you sacrifice privacy through security screenings, etc.
Also, the government is an artificial organization that we, the people, make up. It has no inherent, natural, moral, or ethical rights -- only those that we collectively grant it.
We, as people, are a different animal altogether. We do have inherent, natural rights simply by virtue of our existence.
Re:Standard operating procedure (Score:3, Interesting)
...was considered an extremely significant part of the eventual collapse of the USSR.
Oh, come on. Was considered by whom, exactly ?
I might point out that both sides stole constantly from each other, in many cases quite successfully (viz, the first Soviet fission bomb), as well as energetically developing their own technology (viz, the first Soviet fusion bomb with the "layer cake" design), and that the USSR did not implode because of external pressure.
Re:Outsourcing (Score:3, Interesting)
Where do you expect countries run by dictators (Syria has been under martial law since 1963 and more or less a client state for Iran) that have shit for university, shit for engineering, and oppression as the norm to get advanced anti-missile systems? They cant design their own. They would be starting with 1950s tech at best.
They knew they were taking a chance with foreign made equipment, but, they really dont have a choice.
Also, its worth noting that there may not have been an intentional backdoor/killswitch, this could have been a hack known to the US and others but not to Syria:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/10/how-israel-spoo/ [wired.com]
Re:It's not very sophisticated after all (Score:2, Interesting)
Were I to guess, I'd think that the backdoor routine or whatever would be tucked inside the signal-processing unit of the radar. When the radar picked up specific signals from, say, a jamming aircraft, the backdoor would kick in and shut the radar down.
Alternatively, there might not have been a back door so much as an unknown-to-the-Syrians bug that the Israelis knew about and exploited... hit the radar with a precise return signal that triggered a buffer overflow or something like that, maybe.
Re:It's not very sophisticated after all (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Thatcher and Argentina (Score:2, Interesting)
The remarkable thing is that 4 exocets hit their targets, caused considerable damage, but none of them exploded! The worst damage was caused when the flame from the solid fuel rockets of the exocets ignited the aluminum hulls, which then could not be extinguished. The british have since reconsidered their decision to build their ships out of inflammable metals. Aluminum will burn even under water, and the only way to extinguish the fire is to smother it with inert materials (non-oxygen bearing).
At the time I thought that one failure to explode was possibly accidental equipment failure, but for all four to fail, that had to be a kill switch. I think the british had the kill codes for the exocets, but only used them to disable the explosive, not the targeting, not thinking about how the heat of the fuel would set the aluminum hull on fire. They were probably under some obligation to the french not to reveal the existance of the kill codes, and to not use the kill codes so as to make the exocets look really bad, like turning them around and hitting argentine positions. that would really kill the market for exocets, wouldn't it.
The wikipedia article on exocets documents the falklands/malvinas war, noting that none of the exocets to hit their targets, actually exploded ... here's wikipedia on the three british ships struck by exocets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Conveyor ... [wikipedia.org]
"On 25 May 1982 the Atlantic Conveyor was hit by two[2] Exocet missiles fired by a pair of Argentine Super Étendard jet fighter. The ship caught fire, the fire then became uncontrollable. When the fire had burnt out, the ship was boarded but nothing was recoverable and so the decision was made to sink her. It is unclear whether the missile's warhead detonated ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet ... [wikipedia.org]
"The Exocet that struck the Glamorgan failed to explode, but the unburnt rocket fuel caused a significant fire."
"The crew of the Sheffield and members of the British Task Force were of the opinion that the missile had exploded, but the official report from the RN Board of Inquiry, now available (2007) on the Internet, states that from the evidence available the warhead did not explode. The damage caused was due to the large kinetic energy of the missile, and the unused missile fuel that ignited on impact."
imagine what the damage would have been if they had actually exploded!
Re:Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
a) If we knew "the inner workings" of said chips, it would give us a substantial boost. We'd no longer be wondering how something could work, only how to make it. We'd probably also be able to infer some of the decisions that eventually led to that design.
b) You should consider embracing your parenthetical statements with parenthesis:
I wonder if people from 2050 er 2060 where did the decade go? from 50 years in the future...
Becomes something like:
I wonder if people from 2050-- er 2060 (where did the decade go?)-- from 50 years in the future...